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Ophelia on the Mend

Poor little Ophelia. Today she is recovering from surgery for Ovarian Remnant Syndrome. Basically this means that when she was spayed, they didn’t get everything out. My vet explained that low-cost spay and neuter clinics will sometimes do sort of short-cut spays, in which they don’t actually make sure they got everything, but just kind of hope for the best. Ophelia’s condition is rare, but even so, after everything she’s going through, I would highly encourage anyone with a dog who needs to be spayed to go ahead and pay for a reputable vet to do the spay instead of a low-cost, high-volume clinic that will rush through and maybe not get the job done right. Getting a spay through a vet is more expensive than getting it done at a low-cost clinic, but I assure you, the surgery needed to correct this problem is WAY more expensive than doing it right the first time.

In any case, Ophelia is all taken care of now, but she has been in a lot of pain since coming home this morning. For a few hours, she whined constantly and I had to lay in the closet with her and pet her. She’s doing better now, but every once in awhile, she’ll wander out to the living room and give me a sad look and whimper as if to say, “Mom? Will you come pet me please?” For awhile, she was wearing a t-shirt, as in the above picture, to prevent her from licking the stitches in her nearly 8-inch long incision. She ripped the shirt off and shoved it in her food bowl, which made it pretty clear how she felt about both of those items. In fact she eschewed her dinner entirely, but would eat hot dogs fed to her by hand. I am entirely too indulgent a dog mom, but hey, that’s my baby.

I’m really sad for Ophelia that she had to go through all of this, especially since the vet told me that they found a BB from being shot by a BB gun in her. I’ve been in contact with her rescue organization in Taiwan lately, and I gather that she was living on the streets and was found hiding under a car with her leg so badly broken she couldn’t even walk. The more I hear about her former life, the more I understand why she’s so afraid of men – frankly, I’m surprised she can still trust people at all. It just breaks my heart to think about her life back in Taiwan, but I think karma has been good to her. Who would have guessed that a dog who was living on the streets just over a year ago would end up here, with lots of treats, lots of cuddles, training and agility lessons, and all the hot dogs she can eat? I’m so happy she’s here and feel so lucky to have such a special little girl as my dog.